I have the same thing going on. My self-assign limit is 3. I get declined often for phone shops and at first I thought it was just the one company declining me, but it's not. Even with my limit full, I was assigned almost immediately to a high-paying dinner shop and at the same time declined for a $5 phone shop to another location of the same company where I had already successfully completed a phone shop for a third location and also already assigned to a high-paying in-person shop at the same location where I completed the phone shop. So after thinking about it and hearing that it happens to you too, as well as reading some of the older posts in the forum, I think maybe the answer is that it's actually the phone shops which are highly desirable because they can be done from home, they are basically the equivalent of being paid a dollar a minute, and they are a fast and easy way to raise in rank, so they probably have a lot of requests from all over the internet. I'm guessing they assign to the highest rank of the requests. If you are lucky enough to catch it and auto-assign it then you get it, but if you have to request it then there are so many people with higher rank than you (and me too) that you never get the ones you request. I even recently saw three phone shops offering ZERO pay and they got taken, so I think phone shops are actually the highly desirable jobs. This is all just speculation on my part so take it with a grain of salt!
Yeah I came to say the same thing: everybody posts everything on Instagram or Yelp or Google Maps or whatever these days; taking pictures of your food is no longer anything suspicious or noteworthy.
It could very well be that they are automatically assigned to whomever (highest rank or whatever) and then after that they're automatically declined; maybe the decline announcement goes out a certain amount of time after it's assigned. I just came back to say that there's a monthly shop I have completed several times already and I just realized that even though I am at my self-assign limit, I was able to immediately self-assign the shop at two locations so there is definitely some kind of box they can tick or some way for them to say "this person can automatically self-assign this shop in the future." Perhaps in the case of middle-of-the-night declines, that's when someone was able to self-assign themselves with priority over the waiting requests, which triggered a denial for everyone else who requested it?
I don't take any shops that require me to make a large upfront expenditure unless I would genuinely be willing to pay for the thing. For example, a restaurant is fine because I pay for my dinner and I wouldn't go anywhere I wouldn't want to eat anyway. But I won't purchase an item I wouldn't have purchased without the shop to reimburse me. I keep turning down a shop (from another company) of a high-end store that requires a purchase, pays only $15, and then says it's "your choice" whether to return or keep the item. I'm not making a purchase of that size and risking the company denying my return. If I was already going on a trip however, I would definitely take a shop for the chance to make a little money while there! That said, I've never had a problem with any of my shops and I've never had a shop denied (knock on wood!). If one of my shops needs attention they send it back to me to fix and re-submit.
I've heard the app can be buggy and it's better to just use the mobile web site. I've never had an issue with it working through the website. I would not however rely on this site as a sole source of income to support a family, especially phone shops which are hard to get as a new shopper, or hard to get enough of. The majority of in-person shops require a purchase, sometimes unreimbursed and sometimes more than the shop pays. The original post is over a year old now and it would appear the OP never progressed past that one shop, since they would have gotten at least the one badge.
Wow, all of mine have been declined too. Kind of silly because they don't know it, but I actually had a recent sudden death in the family which I could draw on for the experience. Still, how about that company name? I kinda love it and wish I could get a foot in the funeral home door, so to speak! XD
I'm usually an actual globetrotter (as in, traveling internationally) but have only been doing secret shopping for about three months, so I haven't had a chance to do any far away yet as there are always plenty within even walking distance from my place. On Tuesday I'll do my first shop just over the state border (about 6 miles away) so I hope to get that globetrotter badge; wish me luck!
Mark_15784732858751 @ Feb 23, 2023, 8:55:06 PM
I've completed visits in several countries for various companies....
Hey Mark, would you mind dropping some information on the other countries and companies you've done shopping for? I'd love to do some work on my travels. Feel free to message me directly if you don't want to write about it here. :)
Update: I did get that globetrotter badge after all! :D Now hopefully it doesn't take too many to make it to another level of globetrotter. XD
How do you know they "stiffed" you if your shops haven't even been reviewed yet? Stiffing you would be approving your shops and refusing to pay. You said you un-finalized and re-submitted your reports four times. You probably have caused it to take so long by doing that. Every time you remove your report from its place in the queue and re-submit it, it goes back to the end of the line behind all the other reports they have to review. This is how almost all phone and internet queues work. My shops for them have taken a good 2-3 weeks to go into review and another 2-3 weeks to be approved but they've all been approved and paid so far. I've seen lots of people say they take up to 3 months to pay but I've been paid within 6 weeks of my shops; however if they haven't even been able to review your shops yet then I wouldn't be expecting payment before they've been reviewed or approved. The agent who wrote to you was not "being sarcastic" when saying you'll get paid; clearly she meant you'll get paid AFTER they review and approve your reports.
I've never in my life been so grateful not to have a Costco membership :')
SS007 @ Mar 27, 2023, 3:48:40 PM
[...] If that’s the case, it’s almost worth it to always have room for one more self-assign just in case something highly desirable pops up. [...]
I just completed a bunch of shops which brought me down to only two in my queue, so I have one more self-assign slot now.... I went right to the phone shops list to try to grab one and then I realized I should keep the slot open in case something highly desirable comes up! XD